Page 34 of Just Come Over
“I do, or I can’t ask. Especially as I’m about to ask you to take her on Saturday as well. It dawned on me, sometime today, that I’ll be gone from noon until late, and that it’s only a couple days away. A week after that, we’re on the road for twelve days. If I don’t have somebody hired by then, I’ll be stuck, and I’ll be asking again.”
“Oh.”
“And before you say anything—I know you’re not my personal daycare provider. Short term, that’s all, until I can hire a nanny. And I’ll appreciate the hell out of it.”
“We can start,” she said, “and see how we go. She’s Isaiah’s cousin, and looking after her won’t be much harder than looking after Isaiah. And honestly?” She sighed and admitted it. “I can use the money. I’d like to do it for nothing. I’m a bit ashamed to ask for pay, but I will anyway. I need it.”
Rhys had turned off the fire under his chicken and, without her asking, slid the cutlets onto a cutting board. When she started to lift the pasta pot, he said, “Thought I said to let me do that,” She glanced at him, startled, and he said, “That’s my coach voice. How’d I do?”
“Very authoritative. Go on, then.” Her heart was beating harder, just from standing here with him, just from being honest.
He wasn’t her dream man. Her dream man was solid as rock, strong to the core, and absolutely trustworthy. Her dream man had mana. He just happened to look and sound like Rhys Fletcher.
He drained the pasta in the sink, then turned to her and said, “Yes. Please. Please look after her. I told you that I couldn’t let you do it without paying you for it, and that was the truth. You’ll ease my mind, though, because there couldn’t be anyone better.”
“I’m not a perfect mother,” she said.
“Oh,” he said, “I think you are. I’ve always thought so.”
She’d lost her breath, somehow, even though that was perhaps the least sexy thing anyone had ever said to her. She said, “If you’ll cut that chicken into strips and go get the kids, then, I’ll put the dressing on the salad and the pesto on the pasta, and we’ll be set.” And thought,Not your man. Not your life. No.
Zora said, during a dinner that felt weirdly intimate and oddly comfortable to Rhys, which must be his fatigue talking, “You may want to stay over tonight, Casey. I’m guessing your dad has your school uniform in the car. Changes always make a person tired, and you’ve had heaps of changes. You could sleep on Isaiah’s bottom bunk. That’s fun.”
Casey didn’t answer. She just looked at Rhys, and he wondered what that meant, and what he was meant to say. Having Casey stay here sounded good to him. She’d be in bed faster, and he’d have a night to regroup and no hair to do in the morning. He could focus on the job, which would be a brilliant idea right now. But that too-somber look on her little face—what did it mean?
That she had no expectations anymore, that was what. That she was waiting to see what life was going to do to her next, and that she knew she had no choice.
He asked her, “What do you think?” Nobody had ever askedhimthat. They’d just told him. But hadn’t he been thinking, these past days, that he didn’t want her to have a childhood like his?
“I thought I was going to live with you now,” Casey said. She still hadn’t called him “Dad,” he realized. He wondered how that would feel.
“You are,” he said. “But I have to work, so you’re going to spend some time with Zora and Isaiah.” He hesitated, then told her. Better to be straightforward, surely. “I spend a week or two at a time away from home, because I’m a rugby coach. When the team travels, so do I. And that’s a lot.”
“Oh.” She ate some more noodles, working hard on it, like she did on everything, and thinking things through, like she also did. “Are you a teacher?”
Ateacher?“Uh... no. Just a coach.”
“Coaches are teachers, though. Like, at my school, they have a soccer coach for the big kids, but really, she’s a teacher. She doesn’t go away, though. She’s always there. I think she lives at school.”
“Teachers don’t live at school,” Isaiah said. “They live in houses. Or apartments, because teachers don’t make a lot of money. Coaches make a lot of money, I think. All Blacks make heaps, and they have flash cars, so I think coaches must, too. They’re the boss, and the boss always makes the most money. Uncle Rhys was an All Black for a really long time, even though he isn’t now, so he probably saved heaps of money from that. My dad was an All Black, too, but only a little bit, and then he died. That’s why we only have a little house.”
Casey studied Rhys. Dubious, he’d call that look. “You’re not black, though,” she said. “You’re not even kind of brown. Lots of black people are just kind of brown. My friend Charliece is a black person, and she’s brown. Her hair’s a lot curlier than mine, too. So I don’t think you’re a black person.”
“It’s a team,” Rhys said. “Called the All Blacks, because they wear black uniforms. You can be any color to be on it. You just have to be the best at rugby.” He debated explaining that Maori wore their brown on the inside, no matter how they looked on the outside, but it was a pretty subtle concept, and one his brain wasn’t up to right now.
Casey’s eyes got wide, and she forgot to eat the noodles on her fork. “The Chicago Bears have a coach. Are you that?”
“No,” he said. “That’s American football. This is New Zealand football, the kind we were playing before, out on the lawn. Different.”
“Oh.” She heaved a sigh and stuffed some more noodles into her mouth. He’d disappointed her again.
Isaiah said, “Being an All Black is better. It’s the best thing.”
Casey studied Rhys some more, and he could hear it without her saying it.Yeh, right.He had to smile.
Zora asked Rhys, “Do you have sheets for Casey’s bed, or do you need to borrow some?”
“Oh.” He rubbed his face with a palm and tried to think. “I do somewhere. In a box. Some box. I have a fair bit of unpacking still to do.”
